St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-10-24
SEA DOGS BARKS.
Stories of the Sea Showing That
All Is Not Music in Its Roar.

New Orleans Times-Democrat
The offices of the branch United
States photographic office and the New
Orleans Maritime association are in the
same building in Varieties alley. The
two combined draw together all the loyal
seamen, eX-seamen and visiting seamen
that drop in this way.
The assembled collection on various
occasions presents an aggregation of
characters never seen outside of lust
such knot of jolly old tars. When
the humor finds them in the mood it is
many fine and thrilling tale that they
tell, with animation and guSto, too.
One day last week when the thermom-
eter was wrestling around with the hun
dreds and there was nothing to do but
to see who could tell the biggest yarns
and warmest stories, two old retired sea
captains dropped in and joined the con-
test. The subject drifted off to adj
ventures and strange happenings of the
sea. One old fellow with the smell of
the salt water still about him, just back
from trip around the Horn, shifted
his cud and wanted to know if any one
ever solved the mystery of the brig
Mary Celeste. THAT" said he. ssWas
about the most incomprehensible thing
that ever came under my ken. 1t was
along about rs or Whereabouts that the
Mary Celeste sailed from New
York for Gibraltar with cargo of petro-
leum. About two months afterward she
was picked up between the Western
Islands and Gibraltar. Every sail was
set and Tapping in the wind; the cap
tain's cabin was in perfect order, his
money on the table, his wife's sewing
machine imam If hoI i,,cf hoH
used; but not soul anywhere. No
body could ever imagine. or give any
reason for her strange abandonment:
nothing was heard from that day to this
OF single member of the crew. al
though the government offered time
and again $1,000 for any member of the
missing crew. That brig is sailing out
of New York to-day, and whenever
see her arrival in any of the papers
always wonder what has become of
those who sailed her away from there
ten years ago."
YES" said Capt. Boulanger, another
old salt, strange things do happen. 1
remember when l was down at Panama,
and the bark Petty. Capt. Henry. was
at anchor there. He was a man who
had bad name as regular sundowner.
and before he left it was clearly shown.
One night nine of his crew abandoned
that ship and swan four miles to the
shore, when everybody knows that
Panama bay swarms with sharks. Well,
every one of them got ashore all right,
and that man had to leave for Ca1Iao
Short-handed. He followed us down
there and came in two weeks after
we had anchored; and rOugher look
ing ship you never saw. He hadn't
been out from Panama more than three
days when the crew began to be taken
down with yellow fever. He says that
the last he remembers was the steward
putting a pOultice on his breast, and
when he came to that poultice was Still
there, caked hard and dry. He stag
gered up the hatchway and looked up;
there the ship was going along easy on
the port tack, under lower topsails and
Jlb, the forSailS hauled up, and nOta soul
about the decks. He looked aft and saw
the wheel dashed. Presently an old sailor.
with stub of pipe in his mouth, came
wandering aft and took a look at the
compass. When he spoke to him the
old fellow thought he was a ghost, but
he treasured him and found out that
this old man and the cook were the only
ones that were not down with the fever.
Well, sir, they worked that ship into
Callao, and you can bet from that time
on the skipper was changed man. He
took the Petty around to Boston. and
there wasn't another master there with
better name"
Il remember" said tall, raw-boned
chap, ''the time the crew of the ship
Ann Alexander was picked up off Cape
Good Hope. They had started out with
two MaylayS in the crew, and these two
scoundrels had taken a spite against all
hands; SO one night they got the crew
barricaded in the forecastle. knocked
the captain down and put him below.
The captain YVES Strong fellow, and as
soon as he recovered he managed to get
on deck with gun and made for them.
They had set fire to the vessel, and. as
they saw no further chance for them.
they jumped Oh the rail, shook their